Chapter V: Part 5

[Sidenote: To secure the laws, the only aim of the Revolution.]

"In clearing up and vindicating the justice of the Revolution, which was the second thing proposed, it is far from the intent of the Commons to state the _limits and bounds_ of the subject's submission to the sovereign. That which the law hath been wisely silent in, the Commons desire to be silent in too; nor will they put _any_ case of a justifiable resistance, but that of the Revolution only: and _they persuade themselves that the doing right to that resistance will be so far from promoting popular license or confusion, that it will have a contrary effect, and be a means of settling men's minds in the love of and veneration for the laws_; to rescue and secure which was the _ONLY aim and intention of those concerned in that resistance_."

* * * * *

Dr. Sacheverell's counsel defended him on this principle, namely,--that, whilst he enforced from the pulpit the general doctrine of non-resistance, he was not obliged to take notice of the theoretic limits which ought to modify that doctrine. Sir Joseph Jekyl, in his reply, whilst he controverts its application to the Doctor's defence, fully admits and even enforces the principle itself, and supports the Revolution of 1688, as he and all the managers had done before, exactly upon the same grounds on which Mr. Burke has built, in his Reflections on the French Revolution.

* * * * *

_Sir Joseph Jekyl._

[Sidenote: Blamable to state the bounds of non-resistance.]

[Sidenote: Resistance lawful only in _case_ of extreme and obvious necessity.]

"If the Doctor had pretended to have stated the particular bounds and limits of non-resistance, and told the people in what cases they might or might not resist, _he would have been much to blame_; nor was one word said in the articles, or by the managers, as if that was expected from him; but, _on the contrary, we have insisted that in NO case can resistance be lawful, but in case of EXTREME NECESSITY, and where the Constitution can't otherwise be preserved; and such necessity ought to be plain and obvious to the sense and judgment of the whole nation: and this was the case at the Revolution_."

* * * * *

The counsel for Doctor Sacheverell, in defending their client, were driven in reality to abandon the fundamental principles of his doctrine, and to confess that an exception to the general doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance did exist in the case of the Revolution. This the managers for the Commons considered as having gained their cause, as their having obtained _the whole_ of what they contended for. They congratulated themselves and the nation on a civil victory as glorious and as honorable as any that had obtained in arms during that reign of triumphs.

Sir Joseph Jekyl, in his reply to Harcourt, and the other great men who conducted the cause for the Tory side, spoke in the following memorable terms, distinctly stating the whole of what the Whig House of Commons contended for, in the name of all their constituents.

* * * * *

_Sir Joseph Jekyl._

[Sidenote: Necessity creates an exception, and the Revolution a case of necessity, the utmost extent of the demand of the Commons.]

"My Lords, the concessions" (the concessions of Sacheverell's counsel) "are these: That _necessity_ creates an _exception_ to the general rule of submission to the prince; that such exception is understood or implied in the laws that require such submission; and that _the case of the Revolution was a case of necessity._

"These are concessions _so ample_, and do so _fully_ answer the drift of the Commons in this article, and are to _the utmost extent of their meaning in it_, that I can't forbear congratulating them upon this success of their impeachment,--that in full Parliament, this erroneous doctrine of _unlimited_ non-resistance is given up and disclaimed. And may it not, in after ages, be an addition to the glories of this bright reign, that so many of those who are honored with being in her Majesty's service have been at your Lordships' bar thus successfully contending for the _national_ rights of her people, and proving they are not precarious or remediless?

"But to return to these concessions: I must appeal to your Lordships, whether they are not a _total departure_ from the Doctor's answer."

* * * * *

I now proceed to show that the Whig managers for the Commons meant to preserve the government on a firm foundation, by asserting the perpetual validity of the settlement then made, and its coercive power upon posterity. I mean to show that they gave no sort of countenance to any doctrine tending to impress the _people_ (taken separately from the legislature, which includes the crown) with an idea that _they_ had acquired a moral or civil competence to alter, without breach of the original compact on the part of the king, the succession to the crown, at their pleasure,--much less that they had acquired any right, in the case of such an event as caused the Revolution, to set up any new form of government. The author of the Reflections, I believe, thought that no man of common understanding could oppose to this doctrine the ordinary sovereign power as declared in the act of Queen Anne: that is, that the kings or queens of the realm, with the consent of Parliament, are competent to regulate and to settle the succession of the crown. This power is and ever was inherent in the supreme sovereignty, and was not, as the political divines vainly talk, acquired by the Revolution. It is declared in the old statute of Queen Elizabeth. Such a power must reside in the complete sovereignty of every kingdom; and it is in fact exercised in all of them. But this right of _competence_ in the legislature, not in the people, is by the legislature itself to be exercised with _sound discretion_: that is to say, it is to be exercised or not, in conformity to the fundamental principles of this government, to the rules of moral obligation, and to the faith of pacts, either contained in the nature of the transaction or entered into by the body corporate of the kingdom,--which body in juridical construction never dies, and in fact never loses its members at once by death.

Whether this doctrine is reconcilable to the modern philosophy of government I believe the author neither knows nor cares, as he has little respect for any of that sort of philosophy. This may be because his capacity and knowledge do not reach to it. If such be the case, he cannot be blamed, if he acts on the sense of that incapacity; he cannot be blamed, if, in the most arduous and critical questions which can possibly arise, and which affect to the quick the vital parts of our Constitution, he takes the side which leans most to safety and settlement; that he is resolved not "to be wise beyond what is written" in the legislative record and practice; that, when doubts arise on them, he endeavors to interpret one statute by another, and to reconcile them all to established, recognized morals, and to the general, ancient, known policy of the laws of England. Two things are equally evident: the first is, that the legislature possesses the power of regulating the succession of the crown; the second, that in the exercise of that right it has uniformly acted as if under the _restraints_ which the author has stated. That author makes what the ancients call _mos majorum_ not indeed his sole, but certainly his principal rule of policy, to guide his judgment in whatever regards our laws. Uniformity and analogy can be preserved in them by this process only. That point being fixed, and laying fast hold of a strong bottom, our speculations may swing in all directions without public detriment, because they will ride with sure anchorage.

In this manner these things have been always considered by our ancestors. There are some, indeed, who have the art of turning the very acts of Parliament which were made for securing the hereditary succession in the present royal family, by rendering it penal to doubt of the validity of those acts of Parliament, into an instrument for defeating all their ends and purposes,--but upon grounds so very foolish that it is not worth while to take further notice of such sophistry.

To prevent any unnecessary subdivision, I shall here put together what may be necessary to show the perfect agreement of the Whigs with Mr. Burke in his assertions, that the Revolution made no "essential change in the constitution of the monarchy, or in any of its ancient, sound, and legal principles; that the succession was settled in the Hanover family, upon the idea and in the mode of an hereditary succession qualified with Protestantism; that it was not settled upon _elective_ principles, in any sense of the word _elective_, or under any modification or description of _election_ whatsoever; but, on the contrary, that the nation, after the Revolution, renewed by a fresh compact the spirit of the original compact of the state, binding itself, _both in its existing members and all its posterity_, to adhere to the settlement of an hereditary succession in the Protestant line, drawn from James the First, as the stock of inheritance."

* * * * *

_Sir John Hawles_.

[Sidenote: Necessity of settling the right of the crown, and submission to the settlement.]

"If he [Dr. Sacheverell] is of the opinion he pretends, I can't imagine how it comes to pass that he that pays that deference to the supreme power has preached so directly contrary to the determinations of the supreme power in this government, he very well knowing that the lawfulness of the Revolution, and of the means whereby it was brought about, has already been determined by the aforesaid acts of Parliament,--and do it in the worst manner that he could invent. _For questioning the right to the crown here in England has procured the shedding of more blood and caused more slaughter than all the other matters tending to disturbances in the government put together._ If, therefore, the doctrine which the Apostles had laid down was only to continue the peace of the world, as thinking the death of some few particular persons better to be borne with than a civil war, sure it is the highest breach of that law to question the first principles of this government."

"If the Doctor had been contented with the liberty he took of preaching up the duty of passive obedience in the most extensive manner he had thought fit, and would have stopped there, your Lordships would not have had the trouble in relation to him that you now have; but it is plain that he preached up his absolute and unconditional obedience, not _to continue the peace and tranquillity of this nation, but to set the subjects at strife, and to raise a war in the bowels of this nation_: and it is for _this_ that he is now prosecuted; though he would fain have it believed that the prosecution was for preaching the peaceable doctrine of absolute obedience."

* * * * *

_Sir Joseph Jekyl_.

[Sidenote: Whole frame of government restored unhurt, on the Revolution.]

"The whole tenor of the administration then in being was agreed to by all to be a _total departure from the Constitution_. The nation was at that time united in that opinion, all but the criminal part of it. And as the nation joined in the judgment of their disease, so they did in the remedy. _They saw there was no remedy left but the last;_ and when that remedy took place, _the whole frame of the government was restored entire and unhurt_.[17] This showed the excellent temper the nation was in at that time, that, after such provocations from an abuse of the regal power, and such a convulsion, _no one part of the Constitution was altered, or suffered the least damage; but, on the contrary, the whole received new life and vigor_."

* * * * *

The Tory counsel for Dr. Sacheverell having insinuated that a great and essential alteration in the Constitution had been wrought by the Revolution, Sir Joseph Jekyl is so strong on this point, that he takes fire even at the insinuation of his being of such an opinion.

* * * * *

_Sir Joseph Jekyl._

[Sidenote: No innovation at the Revolution.]

"If the Doctor instructed his counsel to insinuate that there was _any innovation in the Constitution wrought by the Revolution, it is an addition to his crime. The Revolution did not introduce any innovation; it was a restoration of the ancient fundamental Constitution of the kingdom_, and giving it its proper force and energy."

* * * * *

The Solicitor-General, Sir Robert Eyre, distinguishes expressly the case of the Revolution, and its principles, from a proceeding at pleasure, on the part of the people, to change their ancient Constitution, and to frame a new government for themselves. He distinguishes it with the same care from the principles of regicide and republicanism, and the sorts of resistance condemned by the doctrines of the Church of England, and which ought to be condemned by the doctrines of all churches professing Christianity.

* * * * *

_Mr. Solicitor-General, Sir Robert Eyre._

[Sidenote: Revolution no precedent for voluntary cancelling allegiance.]

[Sidenote: Revolution not like the case of Charles the First.]

"The resistance at the Revolution, which was founded in _unavoidable necessity_, could be no defence to a man that was attacked _for asserting that the people might cancel their allegiance at pleasure, or dethrone and murder their sovereign by a judiciary sentence_. For it can never be inferred, from the lawfulness of resistance at a time when _a total subversion of the government both in Church and State was intended_, that a people may take up arms and _call their sovereign to account at pleasure_; and therefore, since _the Revolution could be of no service in giving the least color for asserting any such wicked principle_, the Doctor could never intend to put it into the mouths of those new preachers and new politicians for a defence,--unless it be his opinion that the resistance at the Revolution can bear any parallel with _the execrable murder of the royal martyr, so justly detested by the whole nation_."

[Sidenote: Sacheverell's doctrine intended to bring an odium on the Revolution.]

[Sidenote: True defence of the Revolution an absolute necessity.]

"'Tis plain that the Doctor is not impeached for preaching a general doctrine, and enforcing the general duty of obedience, but for preaching against an _excepted case after he has stated the exception_. He is not impeached for preaching the general doctrine of obedience, and the utter illegality of resistance upon any pretence whatsoever, but because, having first laid down the general doctrine as true, without any exception, _he states the excepted case_, the Revolution, in express terms, as an objection, and then assumes the consideration of that excepted case, denies there was any resistance in the Revolution, and asserts that to impute resistance to the Revolution would cast black and odious colors upon it. This, my Lords, is not preaching the doctrine of non-resistance in the _general_ terms used by the Homilies and the fathers of the Church, where cases of necessity may be _understood to be excepted by a tacit implication, as the counsel have allowed_,--but is preaching directly against the resistance at the Revolution, which, in the course of this debate, has been all along admitted to _be necessary and just_, and can have no other meaning than to bring a dishonor upon the Revolution, and an odium upon those great and illustrious persons, _those friends to the monarchy and the Church, that assisted in bringing it about_. For had the Doctor intended anything else, he would have treated the case of the Revolution in a different manner, and have given _it the true and fair answer_: he would have said that the resistance at the Revolution was _of absolute necessity, and the only means left to revive the Constitution, and must be therefore taken as an excepted case_, and could never come within the reach or intention of the general doctrine of the Church."

"Your Lordships take notice on what grounds the Doctor continues to assert the same position in his answer. But is it not most evident that the general exhortations to be met with in the Homilies of the Church of England, and such like declarations in the statutes of the kingdom, are meant only as rules for the civil obedience of the subject to the legal administration of the supreme power in _ordinary cases_? And it is equally absurd to construe any words in a positive law to authorize the destruction of the whole, as to expect that King, Lords, and Commons should, in express terms of law, declare _such an ultimate resort as the right of resistance, at a time when the case supposes that the force of all law is ceased_."[18]

[Sidenote: Commons abhor whatever shakes the submission of posterity to the settlement of the crown.]

"The Commons must always resent, with the utmost detestation and abhorrence, every position that may shake the authority of that act of Parliament whereby the crown is settled upon her Majesty, _and whereby the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons do, in the name of all the people of England, most humbly and faithfully submit themselves, their heirs and posterities, to her Majesty_, which this general principle of absolute non-resistance must certainly shake.

"For, if the resistance at the Revolution was illegal, the Revolution settled in usurpation, and this act can have no greater force and authority than an act passed under a usurper.

"And the Commons take leave to observe, that the authority of this Parliamentary settlement is a matter of the greatest consequence to maintain, in a case where the hereditary right to the crown is contested."

"It appears by the several instances mentioned in the act declaring the rights and liberties of the subject and settling the succession of the crown, that at the time of the Revolution there was _a total subversion of the constitution of government both in Church and State, which is a case that the laws of England could never suppose, provide for, or have in view._"

* * * * *

Sir Joseph Jekyl, so often quoted, considered the preservation of the monarchy, and of the rights and prerogatives of the crown, as essential objects with all sound Whigs, and that they were bound not only to maintain them, when injured or invaded, but to exert themselves as much for their reëstablishment, if they should happen to be overthrown by popular fury, as any of their own more immediate and popular rights and privileges, if the latter should be at any time subverted by the crown. For this reason he puts the cases of the _Revolution_, and the _Restoration_ exactly upon the same footing. He plainly marks, that it was the object of all honest men not to sacrifice one part of the Constitution to another, and much more, not to sacrifice any of them to visionary theories of the rights of man, but to preserve our whole inheritance in the Constitution, in all its members and all its relations, entire and unimpaired, from generation to generation. In this Mr. Burke exactly agrees with him.

* * * * *

_Sir Joseph Jekyl._

[Sidenote: What are the rights of the people.]

[Sidenote: Restoration and Revolution.]

[Sidenote: People have an equal interest in the legal rights of the crown and of their own.]

"Nothing is plainer than that the people have a right to the laws and the Constitution. This right the nation hath asserted, and recovered out of the hands of those who had dispossessed them of it at several times. There are of this _two famous instances_ in the knowledge of the present age: I mean that of the _Restoration_, and that of the _Revolution_: in both these great events were the _regal power_ and the _rights of the people_ recovered. And it is _hard to say in which the people have the greatest interest; for the Commons are sensible that there it not one legal power belonging to the crown, but they have an interest in it; and I doubt not but they will always be as careful to support the rights of the crown as their own privileges_."

* * * * *

The other Whig managers regarded (as he did) the overturning of the monarchy by a republican faction with the very same horror and detestation with which they regarded the destruction of the privileges of the people by an arbitrary monarch.

* * * * *

_Mr. Lechmere_,

[Sidenote: Constitution recovered at the Restoration and Revolution.]

Speaking of our Constitution, states it as "a Constitution which happily recovered itself, at the Restoration, from the confusions and disorders which _the horrid and detestable proceedings of faction and usurpation had thrown it into_, and which after many convulsions and struggles was providentially saved at the late happy Revolution, and by the many good laws passed since that time stands now upon a firmer foundation, together with the most comfortable prospect of _security to all posterity_ by the settlement of the crown in the Protestant line."

* * * * *

I mean now to show that the Whigs (if Sir Joseph Jekyl was one, and if he spoke in conformity to the sense of the Whig House of Commons, and the Whig ministry who employed him) did carefully guard against any presumption that might arise from the repeal of the non-resistance oath of Charles the Second, as if at the Revolution the ancient principles of our government were at all changed, or that republican doctrines were countenanced, or any sanction given to seditious proceedings upon general undefined ideas of misconduct, or for changing the form of government, or for resistance upon any other ground than the _necessity_ so often mentioned for the purpose of self-preservation. It will show still more clearly the equal care of the then Whigs to prevent either the regal power from being swallowed up on pretence of popular rights, or the popular rights from being destroyed on pretence of regal prerogatives.

* * * * *

_Sir Joseph Jekyl_.

[Sidenote: Mischief of broaching antimonarchical principles.]

[Sidenote: Two cases of resistance: one to preserve the crown, the other the rights of the subject.]

"Further, I desire it may be considered, these legislators" (the legislators who framed the non-resistance oath of Charles the Second) "were guarding against the consequences of those _pernicious and antimonarchical principles which had been broached a little before in this nation_, and those large declarations in favor of _non-resistance_ were made to encounter or obviate the _mischief_ of those principles,--as appears by the preamble to the fullest of those acts, which is the _Militia Act_, in the 13th and 14th of King Charles the Second. The words of that act are these: _And during the late usurped governments, many evil and rebellious principles have been instilled into the minds of the people of this kingdom, which may break forth, unless prevented, to the disturbance of the peace and quiet thereof: Be it therefore enacted_, &c. Here your Lordships may see the reason that inclined those legislators to express themselves in such a manner against resistance. _They had seen the regal rights swallowed up under the pretence of popular ones_: and it is no imputation on them, that they did not then foresee a _quite different case_, as was that of the Revolution, where, under the pretence of regal authority, a total subversion of the rights of the subject was advanced, and in a manner effected. And this may serve to show that it was not the design of those legislators to condemn resistance, in a case _of absolute necessity, for preserving the Constitution_, when they were guarding against principles which had so lately destroyed it."

[Sidenote: Non-resistance oath not repealed because (with the restriction of necessity) it was false, but to prevent false interpretations.]

"As to the truth of the doctrine in this declaration which was repealed, _I'll admit it to be as true as the Doctor's counsel assert it,--that is, with an exception of cases of necessity_: and it was not repealed because it was false, _understanding it with that restriction_; but it was repealed because it might be interpreted in _an unconfined sense, and exclusive of that restriction_, and, being so understood, would reflect on the justice of the Revolution: and this the legislature had at heart, and were very jealous of, and by this repeal of that declaration gave a Parliamentary or legislative admonition against asserting this doctrine of non-resistance _in an unlimited sense_."

[Sidenote: General doctrine of non-resistance godly and wholesome; not bound to state _explicitly_ the exceptions.]

"Though the general doctrine of non-resistance, the doctrine of the Church of England, as stated in her Homilies, or elsewhere delivered, by which the general duty of subjects to the higher powers is taught, be owned to be, as unquestionably it is, _a godly and wholesome doctrine_,--though this general doctrine has been constantly inculcated by the reverend fathers of the Church, dead and living, and preached by them as a preservative against the Popish doctrine of deposing princes, and as the ordinary rule of obedience,--and though the same doctrine has been preached, maintained, and avowed by our most orthodox and able divines from the time of the Reformation,--and how _innocent a man_ soever Dr. Sacheverell had been, if, _with an honest and well-meant_ zeal, he had preached the same doctrine in the same general terms in which he found it delivered by the Apostles of Christ, as taught by the Homilies and the reverend fathers of our Church, and, in imitation of those great examples, had only pressed the general duty of obedience, and the illegality of resistance, without taking notice of any exception," &c.

* * * * *

Another of the managers for the House of Commons, Sir John Holland, was not less careful in guarding against a confusion of the principles of the Revolution with any loose, general doctrines of a right in the individual, or even in the people, to undertake for themselves, on any prevalent, temporary opinions of convenience or improvement, any fundamental change in the Constitution, or to fabricate a new government for themselves, and thereby to disturb the public peace, and to unsettle the ancient Constitution of this kingdom.

* * * * *

_Sir John Holland_.

[Sidenote: Submission to the sovereign a conscientious duty, except in cases of necessity.]

"The Commons would not be understood as if they were pleading for a licentious resistance, as if _subjects_ were left to _their_ good-will and pleasure when they are to _obey_ and when to _resist_. No, my Lords, they know they are _obliged by all the ties of social creatures and Christians, for wrath and conscience' sake, to submit to their sovereign_. The Commons do not abet _humorsome, factious arms_: they aver them to be _rebellions_. But yet they maintain that that resistance at the Revolution, which was so _necessary, was lawful and just from that necessity_."

[Sidenote: Right of resistance how to be understood.]

"These general rules of obedience may, upon a _real necessity,_ admit a lawful _exception_; and such a _necessary exception_ we assert the Revolution to be.

"'Tis with this view of _necessity_, only _absolute necessity_ of preserving our laws, liberties, and religion,--'tis with _this limitation_, that we desire to be understood, when any of us speak of resistance in general. The _necessity_ of the resistance at the Revolution was at that time obvious to every man."

* * * * *

I shall conclude these extracts with a reference to the Prince of Orange's Declaration, in which he gives the nation the fullest assurance that in his enterprise he was far from the intention of introducing any change whatever in the fundamental law and Constitution of the state. He considered the object of his enterprise not to be a precedent for further revolutions, but that it was the great end of his expedition to make such revolutions, so far as human power and wisdom could provide, unnecessary.

* * * * *

_Extracts from the Prince of Orange's Declaration_.

"_All magistrates, who have been_ unjustly turned out, shall _forthwith resume their former_ employments; as well as all the boroughs of England shall return again to _their ancient prescriptions and charters_, and, more particularly, that _the ancient_ charter of the great and famous city of London shall again be in force; and that the writs for the members of Parliament shall be addressed to the _proper officers, according to law and custom_."

"And for the doing of all other things which the two Houses of Parliament shall find necessary for the peace, honor, and safety of the nation, so that there may _be no more danger of the nation's falling, at any time hereafter, under arbitrary government_."

* * * * *

_Extract from the Prince of Oranges Additional Declaration_.

[Sidenote: Principal nobility and gentry well affected to the Church and crown, security against the design of innovation.]

"We are confident that no persons can have _such hard thoughts of us_ as to imagine that we have any other design in this undertaking than to procure a settlement of the _religion and of the liberties and properties of the subjects upon so sure a foundation that there may be no danger of the nation's relapsing into the like miseries at any time hereafter_. And as the forces that we have brought along with us are utterly disproportioned to that wicked design of conquering the nation, if we were capable of intending it, _so the great numbers of the principal nobility and gentry, that are men of eminent quality and estates, and persons of known integrity and zeal, both for the religion and government of England, many of them, also being distinguished by their constant fidelity to the crown_, who do both accompany us in this expedition and have earnestly solicited us to it, will cover us from all such malicious insinuations."

* * * * *

In the spirit, and, upon one occasion, in the words,[19] of this Declaration, the statutes passed in that reign made such provisions for preventing these dangers, that scarcely anything short of combination of King, Lords, and Commons, for the destruction of the liberties of the nation, can in any probability make us liable to similar perils. In that dreadful, and, I hope, not to be looked-for case, any opinion of a right to make revolutions, grounded on this precedent, would be but a poor resource. Dreadful, indeed, would be our situation!

* * * * *

These are the doctrines held by _the Whigs of the Revolution_, delivered with as much solemnity, and as authentically at least, as any political dogmas were ever promulgated from the beginning of the world. If there be any difference between their tenets and those of Mr. Burke, it is, that the old Whigs oppose themselves still more strongly than he does against the doctrines which are now propagated with so much industry by those who would be thought their successors.

It will be said, perhaps, that the old Whigs, in order to guard themselves against popular odium, pretended to assert tenets contrary to those which they secretly held. This, if true, would prove, what Mr. Burke has uniformly asserted, that the extravagant doctrines which he meant to expose were disagreeable to the body of the people,--who, though they perfectly abhor a despotic government, certainly approached more nearly to the love of mitigated monarchy than to anything which bears the appearance even of the best republic. But if these old Whigs deceived the people, their conduct was unaccountable indeed. They exposed their power, as every one conversant in history knows, to the greatest peril, for the propagation of opinions which, on this hypothesis, they did not hold. It is a new kind of martyrdom. This supposition does as little credit to their integrity as their wisdom: it makes them at once hypocrites and fools. I think of those great men very differently. I hold them to have been, what the world thought them, men of deep understanding, open sincerity, and clear honor. However, be that matter as it may, what these old Whigs pretended to be Mr. Burke is. This is enough for him.

I do, indeed, admit, that, though Mr. Burke has proved that his opinions were those of the old Whig party, solemnly declared by one House, in effect and substance by both Houses of Parliament, this testimony standing by itself will form no proper defence for his opinions, if he and the old Whigs were both of them in the wrong. But it is his present concern, not to vindicate these old Whigs, but to show his agreement with them. He appeals to them as judges: he does not vindicate them as culprits. It is current that these old politicians knew little of the rights of men,--that they lost their way by groping about in the dark, and fumbling among rotten parchments and musty records. Great lights, they say, are lately obtained in the world; and Mr. Burke, instead of shrouding himself in exploded ignorance, ought to have taken advantage of the blaze of illumination which has been spread about him. It may be so. The enthusiasts of this time, it seems, like their predecessors in another faction of fanaticism, deal in lights. Hudibras pleasantly says of them, they

"Have _lights_, where better eyes are blind,--
As pigs are said to see the wind."

The author of the Reflections has _heard_ a great deal concerning the modern lights, but he has not yet had the good fortune to _see_ much of them. He has read more than he can justify to anything but the spirit of curiosity, of the works of these illuminators of the world. He has learned nothing from the far greater number of them than a full certainty of their shallowness, levity, pride, petulance, presumption, and ignorance. Where the old authors whom he has read, and the old men whom he has conversed with, have left him in the dark, he is in the dark still. If others, however, have obtained any of this extraordinary light, they will use it to guide them in their researches and their conduct. I have only to wish that the nation may be as happy and as prosperous under the influence of the new light as it has been in the sober shade of the old obscurity. As to the rest, it will be difficult for the author of the Reflections to conform to the principles of the avowed leaders of the party, until they appear otherwise than negatively. All we can gather from them is this,--that their principles are diametrically opposite to his. This is all that we know from authority. Their negative declaration obliges me to have recourse to the books which contain positive doctrines. They are, indeed, to those Mr. Burke holds diametrically opposite; and if it be true (as the oracles of the party have said, I hope hastily) that their opinions differ so widely, it should seem they are the most likely to form the creed of the modern Whigs.

* * * * *

I have stated what were the avowed sentiments of the old Whigs, not in the way of argument, but narratively. It is but fair to set before the reader, in the same simple manner, the sentiments of the modern, to which they spare neither pains nor expense to make proselytes. I choose them from the books upon which most of that industry and expenditure in circulation have been employed; I choose them, not from those who speak with a politic obscurity, not from those who only controvert the opinions of the old Whigs, without advancing any of their own, but from those who speak plainly and affirmatively. The Whig reader may make his choice between the two doctrines.

The doctrine, then, propagated by these societies, which gentlemen think they ought to be very tender in discouraging, as nearly as possible in their own words, is as follows: That in Great Britain we are not only without a good Constitution, but that we have "no Constitution";--that, "though it is much talked about, no such thing as a Constitution exists or ever did exist, and consequently that _the people have a Constitution yet to form_;--that since William the Conqueror the country has never yet _regenerated itself_, and is therefore without a Constitution;--that where it cannot be produced in a visible form there is none;--that a Constitution is a thing antecedent to government; and that the Constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of a people constituting a government;--that _everything_ in the English government is the reverse of what it ought to be, and what it is said to be in England;--that the right of war and peace resides in a metaphor shown at the Tower for sixpence or a shilling apiece;--that it signifies not where the right resides, whether in the crown or in Parliament; war is the common harvest of those who participate in the division and expenditure of public money;--that the portion of liberty enjoyed in England is just enough to enslave a country more productively than by despotism."

So far as to the general state of the British Constitution.--As to our House of Lords, the chief virtual representative of our aristocracy, the great ground and pillar of security to the landed interest, and that main link by which it is connected with the law and the crown, these worthy societies are pleased to tell us, that, "whether we view aristocracy before, or behind, or sideways, or any way else, domestically or publicly, it is still a _monster_;--that aristocracy in France had one feature less in its countenance than what it has in some other countries: it did not compose a body of hereditary legislators; it was not _a corporation of aristocracy_" (for such, it seems, that profound legislator, M. de La Fayette, describes the House of Peers);--"that it is kept up by family tyranny and injustice;--that there is an unnatural unfitness in aristocracy to be legislators for a nation;--that their ideas of distributive justice are corrupted at the very source; they begin life by trampling on all their younger brothers and sisters, and relations of every kind, and are taught and educated so to do;--that the idea of an hereditary legislator is as absurd as an hereditary mathematician;--that a body holding themselves unaccountable to anybody ought to be trusted by nobody;--that it is continuing the uncivilized principles of governments founded in conquest, and the base idea of man having a property in man, and governing him by a personal right;--that aristocracy has a tendency to degenerate the human species," &c., &c.

As to our law of primogeniture, which with few and inconsiderable exceptions is the standing law of all our landed inheritance, and which without question has a tendency, and I think a most happy tendency, to preserve a character of consequence, weight, and prevalent influence over others in the whole body of the landed interest, they call loudly for its destruction. They do this for political reasons that are very manifest. They have the confidence to say, "that it is a law against every law of Nature, and Nature herself calls for its destruction. Establish family justice, and aristocracy falls. By the aristocratical law of primogenitureship, in a family of six children, five are exposed. Aristocracy has never but _one_ child. The rest are begotten to be devoured. They are thrown to the cannibal for prey, and the natural parent prepares the unnatural repast."

As to the House of Commons, they treat it far worse than the House of Lords or the crown have been ever treated. Perhaps they thought they had a greater right to take this amicable freedom with those of their own family. For many years it has been the perpetual theme of their invectives. "Mockery, insult, usurpation," are amongst the best names they bestow upon it. They damn it in the mass, by declaring "that it does not arise out of the inherent rights of the people, as the National Assembly does in France, and whose name designates its original."

Of the charters and corporations, to whose rights a few years ago these gentlemen were so tremblingly alive, they say, "that, when the people of England come to reflect upon them, they will, like France, annihilate those badges of oppression, those traces of a conquered nation."

As to our monarchy, they had formerly been more tender of that branch of the Constitution, and for a good reason. The laws had guarded against all seditious attacks upon it with a greater degree of strictness and severity. The tone of these gentlemen is totally altered since the French Revolution. They now declaim as vehemently against the monarchy as on former occasions they treacherously flattered and soothed it.

"When we survey the wretched condition of man under the monarchical and hereditary systems of government, dragged from his home by one power, or driven by another, and impoverished by taxes more than by enemies, it becomes evident that those systems are bad, and that a general revolution in the principle and construction of governments is necessary.

"What is government more than the management of the affairs of a nation? It is not, and from its nature cannot be, the property of any particular man or family, but of the whole community, at whose expense it is supported; and though by force or contrivance it has been usurped into an inheritance, the usurpation cannot alter the right of things. Sovereignty, as a matter of right, appertains to the nation only, and not to any individual; and a nation has at all times an inherent indefeasible right to abolish any form of government it finds inconvenient, and establish such as accords with its interest, disposition, and happiness. The romantic and barbarous distinction of men into kings and subjects, though it may suit the condition of courtiers, cannot that of citizens, and is exploded by the principle upon which governments are now founded. Every citizen is a member of the sovereignty, and, as such, can acknowledge no personal subjection, and his obedience can be only to the laws."

Warmly recommending to us the example of Prance, where they have destroyed monarchy, they say,--

"Monarchical sovereignty, the enemy of mankind, and the source of misery, is abolished; and sovereignty itself is restored to its natural and original place, the nation. Were this the case throughout Europe, the cause of wars would be taken away."

"But, after all, what is this metaphor called a crown? or rather, what is monarchy? Is it a thing, or is it a name, or is it a fraud? Is it 'a contrivance of human wisdom,' or of human craft, to obtain money from a nation under specious pretences? Is it a thing necessary to a nation? If it is, in what does that necessity consist, what services does it perform, what is its business, and what are its merits? Doth the virtue consist in the metaphor or in the man? Doth the goldsmith that makes the crown make the virtue also? Doth it operate like Fortunatus's wishing-cap or Harlequin's wooden sword? Doth it make a man a conjurer? In fine, what is it? It appears to be a something going much out of fashion, falling into ridicule, and rejected in some countries both as unnecessary and expensive. In America it is considered as an absurdity; and in France it has so far declined, that the goodness of the man and the respect for his personal character are the only things that preserve the appearance of its existence."

"Mr. Burke talks about what he calls an hereditary crown, as if it were some production of Nature,--or as if, like time, it had a power to operate, not only independently, but in spite of man,--or as if it were a thing or a subject universally consented to. Alas! it has none of those properties, but is the reverse of them all. It is a thing in imagination, the propriety of which is more than doubted, and the legality of which in a few years will be denied."

"If I ask the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and down through all the occupations of life to the common laborer, what service monarchy is to him, he can give me no answer. If I ask him what monarchy is, he believes it is something like a sinecure."

"The French Constitution says, that the right of war and peace is in the nation. Where else should it reside, but in those who are to pay the expense?

"In England, this right is said to reside in a _metaphor_, shown at the Tower for sixpence or a shilling apiece: so are the lions; and it would be a step nearer to reason to say it resided in them, for any inanimate metaphor is no more than a hat or a cap. We can all see the absurdity of worshipping Aaron's molten calf, or Nebuchadnezzar's golden image; but why do men continue to practise themselves the absurdities they despise in others?"

The Revolution and Hanover succession had been objects of the highest veneration to the old Whigs. They thought them not only proofs of the sober and steady spirit of liberty which guided their ancestors, but of their wisdom and provident care of posterity. The modern Whigs have quite other notions of these events and actions. They do not deny that Mr. Burke has given truly the words of the acts of Parliament which secured the succession, and the just sense of them. They attack not him, but the law.

"Mr Burke" (say they) "has done some service, not to his cause, but to his country, by bringing those clauses into public view. They serve to demonstrate how necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess. It is somewhat extraordinary, that the offence for which James the Second was expelled, that of setting up power by _assumption_, should be re-acted, under another shape and form, by the Parliament that expelled him. It shows that the rights of man were but imperfectly understood at the Revolution; for certain it is, that the right which that Parliament set up by _assumption_ (for by delegation it had it not, and could not have it, because none could give it) over the persons and freedom of posterity forever, was of the same tyrannical unfounded kind which James attempted to set up over the Parliament and the nation, and for which he was expelled. The only difference is, (for in principle they differ not,) that the one was an usurper over the living, and the other over the unborn; and as the one has no better authority to stand upon than the other, both of them must be equally null and void, and of no effect."

"As the estimation of all things is by comparison, the Revolution of 1688, however from circumstances it may have been exalted beyond its value, will find its level. It is already on the wane, eclipsed by the enlarging orb of reason and the luminous Revolutions of America and France. In less than another century, it will go, as well as Mr. Burke's labors, 'to the family vault of all the Capulets.' _Mankind will then scarcely believe that a country calling itself free would send to Holland for a man and clothe him with power on purpose to put themselves in fear of him, and give him almost a million sterling a year for leave to submit themselves and their posterity like bondmen and bondwomen forever_."

Mr. Burke having said that "the king holds his crown in contempt of the choice of the Revolution Society, who individually or collectively have not" (as most certainly they have not) "a vote for a king amongst them," they take occasion from thence to infer that the king who does not hold his crown by election despises the people.

"'The king of England,' says he, 'holds _his_ crown' (for it does not belong to the nation, according to Mr. Burke) 'in _contempt_ of the choice of the Revolution Society,'" &c.

"As to who is king in England or elsewhere, or whether there is any king at all, or whether the people choose a Cherokee chief or a Hessian hussar for a king, it is not a matter that I trouble myself about,--be that to themselves; but with respect to the doctrine, so far as it relates to the rights of men and nations, it is as abominable as anything ever uttered in the most enslaved country under heaven. Whether it sounds worse to my ear, by not being accustomed to hear such despotism, than what it does to the ear of another person, I am not so well a judge of; but of its abominable principle I am at no loss to judge."

These societies of modern Whigs push their insolence as far as it can go. In order to prepare the minds of the people for treason and rebellion, they represent the king as tainted with principles of despotism, from the circumstance of his having dominions in Germany. In direct defiance of the most notorious truth, they describe his government there to be a despotism; whereas it is a free Constitution, in which the states of the Electorate have their part in the government: and this privilege has never been infringed by the king, or, that I have heard of, by any of his predecessors. The Constitution of the Electoral dominions has, indeed, a double control, both from the laws of the Empire and from the privileges of the country. Whatever rights the king enjoys as Elector have been always parentally exercised, and the calumnies of these scandalous societies have not been authorized by a single complaint of oppression.

"When Mr. Burke says that 'his Majesty's heirs and successors, each in their time and order, will come to the crown with the _same contempt_ of their choice with which his Majesty has succeeded to that he wears,' it is saying too much even to the humblest individual in the country, part of whose daily labor goes towards making up the million sterling a year which the country gives the person it styles a king. Government with insolence is despotism; but when contempt is added, it becomes worse; and to pay for contempt is the excess of slavery. This species of government comes from Germany, and reminds me of what one of the Brunswick soldiers told me, who was taken prisoner by the Americans in the late war. 'Ah!' said he, 'America is a fine free country: it is worth the people's fighting for. I know the difference by knowing my own: in my country, _if the prince says, "Eat straw" we eat straw_.' God help that country, thought I, be it England, or elsewhere, whose liberties are to be protected by _German principles of government and princes of Brunswick_!"

"It is somewhat curious to observe, that, although the people of England have been in the habit of talking about kings, it is always a foreign house of kings,--hating foreigners, yet governed by them. It is now the House of Brunswick, one of the petty tribes of Germany."

"If government be what Mr. Burke describes it, 'a contrivance of human wisdom,' I might ask him if wisdom was at such a low ebb in England that it was become necessary to import it from Holland and from Hanover? But I will do the country the justice to say, that was not the case; and even if it was, it mistook the cargo. The wisdom of every country, when properly exerted, is sufficient for all its purposes; _and there could exist no more real occasion in England to have sent for a Dutch Stadtholder or a German Elector_ than there was in America to have done a similar thing. If a country does not understand its own affairs, how is a foreigner to understand them, who knows neither its laws, its manners, nor its language? If there existed a man so transcendently wise above all others that his wisdom was necessary to instruct a nation, some reason might be offered for monarchy; but when we cast our eyes about a country, and observe how every part understands its own affairs, and when we look around the world, and see, that, of all men in it, the race of kings are the most insignificant in capacity, our reason cannot fail to ask us, What are those men kept for?"[20]

* * * * *

These are the notions which, under the idea of Whig principles, several persons, and among them persons of no mean mark, have associated themselves to propagate. I will not attempt in the smallest degree to refute them. This will probably be done (if such writings shall be thought to deserve any other than the refutation of criminal justice) by others, who may think with Mr. Burke. He has performed his part.